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| Do nothing Modesto Gospel Mission security guard posturing for me after I told him I was going to file a written complaint against him with the Mission. |
Which, by the way, seems like an event that could only happen as I approach my turn to be able to request my Cup-a Joe so that I can read the morning’s obituaries summing up the useless lives of many that were in line before me that very same morning. Sounds far out, if not paradoxically impossible, but if you were there behind this unsuspecting mob, every single one of you would, quite suddenly, break that nasty habit of running every single day to catch the mailman in hopes of some sort of an AARP publication with your name on it.
Mortality becomes ominously omnipresent in your solar plexus. So much so, that life begins to lose all meaning.
But of course, these are all elderly Americans. On the other side of the counter, they don’t need to mob. It’s guerrilla warfare with lard being the ammunition of defense and protection.
Yet their clientele may already be dead by the time I do order that discreet cup of coffee, poured from an unseen pot.
And by the time they do interact with me, it is with the greatest of familiarity. As I am recognized as an envoy, if not an all-out American double agent, enjoying the warmth and security of my many safe houses as I conveniently choose to do so. This time it’s been nearly five years since I last sought refuge here.
I turn away from the counter to look out over dozens of elderly bodies strewn across the floor, slumped over tables and others merely decaying within the shelter of a dwarfed and somewhat fragile hedgerow.
And it is just over that hedgerow I look out and see what the future hold for me – One less safe house. One less refuge. The new generation will prefer this new order of a donut shop – Dunkin Donuts.
Yet how could they possibly know anything else? After all, Dunkin Donuts really is a donut shop. Not a Vietnamese refugee camp posing as one, simply to fight off the round faces with lard laden pastries.
No. No one would even know me there.
Yes. The price to pay for my elation of finally being served black coffee, was to be no more than the full realization of my normalcy bias. What’s a covert narcissistic, triple cultural spy to do?
Say, “Good-bye Saigon.”
And hello Ho Chi Minh. Where the lesson I learned in Saigon, I just might be able to turn the tide of this genocidal war, despite the lowering statistical percentages of diabetes and heart disease among the psychopathic American factions hell bent on the complete sterilization of any culture bearing roots before the May Flower crossing. We call this “assimilation”.
But Ho Chi Minh is under siege from a different kind of force. A force fueled by the inevitable apathy produced by dope and booze, forever descending like a viral plague upon the camp. Emitted by the Modesto Gospel Mission, primarily with no consideration whatsoever of the business welfare of the camp.
They converge on anyone approaching the shop, demanding money, tobacco, transportation and if the unsuspecting customer refuses, they are pelted with a barge of extremely profane insults and threats, often times including very real threats of violence.
So the would be patrons take the only alternative they have at their disposal and drive away as fast as they can. Never to return. One less happy, satisfied customer and just another nail in the coffin of a thirty year old establishment.
I’m sorry. I need my refuge. I can’t let this happen. So enter the scene – Pollo Suave.
“Hey Bro,” I announce, looking up from these scribbled bits of paper you are reading now, “If you’re not going to buy something, you need to leave.”
“I don’t need to leave”, they say, “I have every right to be here.”
And I fire back, “If you’re not going to buy something you need to leave.” At which point, I rise up, flexing my chubby forearms and I throw down my pen and heave my man-boobs outward, shouting like a NAZI pig, “HEY BRO!! I AIN’T GOING TO TELL YOU AGAIN!”
They are usually out the door just after the first step I take toward them.
It doesn’t take long for my asshole reputation to take hold and soon, with great relief, families return. Working people return and don’t suffer the harassment of junkies and derelicts threatening their safety, if not their very lives.
The Modesto Gospel Mission parades their mock security guards in a golf cart they drive around the parking lot all day. Ignoring the many junkies shooting up in the doorway where paying customers must wait for them to move or step over them. These so called “Security Guards” should give me their paychecks or at the very least, perform the job they pretend to do.
But, as is everything else with the multi-million dollar a year grossing Modesto Gospel Mission, its nothing but just another farce.
So I will take care of it. Even when I know these people are mis-catagorized as desperate homeless people. Yet there is a vast difference between desperation for drugs and/or alcohol and desperation to grasp a sustainable livelihood.
So now Ho Chi Minh may once again commence in the assisted suicide of the round-faced Americans and contribute to the economic wellbeing of the community. The latter of which no one really cares about outside the safe confines of their own refuge, namely, their pocket book.
“Hey! You not want donut?”
Copyright 2017 Robert Stanford all rights reserved.
